


Redux

by niseag



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, F/M, Rough Sex, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:34:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24871621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niseag/pseuds/niseag
Summary: "This is Ben’s fault. Her bloodied palms. Her ruined shirt. The burning ache in her throat. Mascara running down her cheeks. Campaign in tatters. And that fucking broken clock. Oh, god. She’s so fucked."Leslie and Ben take their anger out on each other at the Model UN. And it's the beginning of the end for both of them.
Relationships: Leslie Knope/Ben Wyatt
Comments: 19
Kudos: 40





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back on my bullshit with The Treaty smut but honestly, can you blame me? Originally just a smutty oneshot, now in two parts.

This is Ben’s fault.

Her bloodied palms. Her ruined shirt. The burning ache in her throat. Mascara running down her cheeks. Campaign in tatters. And that fucking broken clock.

Oh, god.

She’s so fucked.

***

The day was set to be a disaster from the moment they decided on Denmark and Peru. The seeds of Leslie’s destruction. She’d never have been cut out of the transpacific treaty if she’d been in Asia to start with. So it had started with country selection and gone rapidly downhill from the moment they’d set foot in the gym despite the glimmering false promise of the first half-hour.

No, as soon as William had walked in for the photo op it had pretty much all gone directly to shit.

William. The campaign.

Fuck.

Yeah. So Ben had been pissy, and pissy had escalated to all-out pissed, had escalated to screaming at each other in the middle of a room packed with a hundred kids who all own cell phones and with the benefit of hindsight, Leslie’s confident this was the moment when things became really, irrevocably fucked.

“Good lord,” Ben had said, not looking at Leslie at all, dazzled by the flash of an iPhone camera over her shoulder. Not that she’d noticed at the time. Half an hour later, she’d straightened up against the lectern after putting her shoe back on to see William Barnes had been standing in the back of the gymnasium, and then she had walked like a convict to her own execution.

So the ship has definitely sailed on bolstering her education credentials. She didn’t need William to tell her that, although he had anyway. He also told her that she’s fucked. In those exact words.

She probably didn’t need him to tell her that either.

***

When William leaves her in the wings with a shake of his head that screams _disappointed, but not surprised_ , Leslie’s desperate, shaken—and out for blood.

Ben is still standing on the floor by the stage, exactly where she left him when she’d made her journey to the gallows ten minutes before. 

“We need to talk,” she says. She’s surprised by how calm she sounds. No emotion at all. Dead. Her mother would be proud, she thinks dully, then immediately pushes the idea away. No. Her mother will certainly not be proud of her when this gets out.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Leslie grips Ben by the arm and escorts him shortly out of the gymnasium before he can protest. She marches him into the hall and keeps walking, fingers biting through the fabric of his blazer, until she finds an empty classroom.

With more composure than ought to be possible in a time like this, she closes the door behind them and fastens the bolts at the floor and the ceiling, locking them inside. She sure hopes these classrooms are soundproof.

Ben still hasn’t said anything. He just let her lead him in here and lock him inside with her. Leslie’s not really sure why he hasn’t put up a fight. She’s not sure why she’s still so calm. She turns around and looks at him. He’s just standing there, hands on his hips, waiting and unreadable. What is _his_ problem?

Right. Well. Good. There’s the fury, bubbling back up right when she needs it.

“What the hell, Ben?” she says, stepping further into the room, closer to Ben and away from the door.

Something flickers behind his eyes. “You’re not about to blame me for whatever happened with Barnes.”

“Of course I am! This is your fault!”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“You—you goaded me! And you humiliated me at my own campaign event—”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise I’d signed up for a campaign event, Leslie. I thought I’d signed up for Model UN.”

“You knew… Look, obviously—” She breaks off, realises that arguing the finer details isn’t going to cut it. She needs to go for the throat. “ _Don’t be a callous ass, Ben_.”

Ben tenses and she smiles coldly, knows she’s struck that old, tender nerve. “Oh, okay,” he says, voice clipped and stern, maybe a little sarcastic. “Sure. I’ll stop being a callous ass—” he points at her “—and you’ll stop being a spoiled brat. How’s that?”

Leslie recoils. He might as well have slapped her. “I—”

“No, Leslie, really. Clearly there’s nothing you won’t step all over to get your way, but god forbid _you’re_ inconvenienced at all. That strikes me as kind of bratty, don’t you think?”

“When have I ever…”

“How many times did you lie to me before we broke up?”

“I—never!” 

“Really? Not even by omission?” Leslie takes a breath, poised to launch into a blind and bullheaded defense ( _because really, she hasn’t forgotten about the ladies’ yacht club, but she’s in too deep to back out now_ ) but Ben charges on, stepping closer. “Save it, Leslie. It’s—it’s whatever. I forgave you. I actually thought it was... sweet—granted, in a twisted sort of way. And I bought into it too. I did. But you just didn’t have the dignity to let this go. And honestly, I’m getting to be pretty fucking sour on the whole thing.” He takes another step towards her. “Shauna Malwae-Tweep. The gas station. Showing up on my doorstep to see if she was there under the pretense of making an apology. Bringing me in as a babysitter today while you do your campaign stunt. Starting a war in Model UN when you didn’t get your way—for god’s sake! But no, it’s _your campaign_ that’s unimpeachable here and the rest of it can go to hell.” Ben closes the distance between them. “Okay, Leslie. Sure. You’re not being a brat.”

If she were calmer she might have to admit there’s some truth in what he’s saying. But she isn’t. The rest of her world is about to crumble and she needs someone, anyone to blame for it. So she takes a good hard look at the bullseye, Ben’s strike in its center, and shoots left handed for the wall instead.

“So I didn’t want to break up with you and I still wanted to be friends after?” she shouts, gesticulating wildly, off base and reckless. “God, you’re right, I’m awful! I’m the worst, Ben! I’m sooo sorry—”

Ben’s not amused. “Can you actually hear yourself right now?” He takes another step and collides with her, his torso pressing up against hers. She’s pretty sure she feels his dick, too.

Leslie drops the farce. She breathes hot air, pushing back against him experimentally. Yeah. He’s hard. Leslie yanks at his tie, but he doesn’t budge an inch. “Oh, are we doing this?” she growls.

They’d talked about this once or twice. How two passionate, commanding people might settle an argument outside of civil discourse. But of course they’d run out of time to try it. After all, they’d never fought. Until now.

Ben exhales roughly. “Yes.” He steps again, shoves Leslie backwards into the door with such force that the wood rattles, the wall shakes and the classroom clock drops off its hook and falls to the floor with a crash. There’s a sharp throb in the back of her head and the edge of the wood paneling bites into her ass. Leslie shoves back. Ben grabs for her hands, traps them in his, and she struggles for a moment before angling her wrist just so and ripping herself free of Ben’s thumb and forefinger. Running on raw instinct, she brings her hand back to his cheek with a hard, deep, stinging _thwack_ that turns his head to the side. Her hand smarts from the impact. Even in the midst of this firestorm she feels a lick of remorse, hesitation—but then he turns back to her, and the look in his eyes tells her she’s hit a vein of hot molten gold.

His cock presses harder against her thigh and the way he’s looking at her is so intense she feels she’s staring into the black sun of another world, one of the far-off fantasy lands Ben daydreams in where everything is upside down and the abyss of space is hotter than hell. Leslie’s frozen, breathing hard, hand still in the air, staring at him, matching his dark burning with her crimson flare.

And she’s not exactly sure what she expected to happen next, but he looks at her for a few long moments with a quiet sort of intensity and then he growls, _“Nox.”_

All in the same instant Leslie drops her hand, drops his tie, and reaches out to him with soft fingers. It’s never come into play before, but this is the word that calls it off.

“I’m sorry,” she says, biting down hard on her lip. It could be a plea for absolution, an olive branch, if she wanted. She could stop running wild with anger and let it all catch up with her and succumb to the force of it all and break and cry and beg for forgiveness, lay herself bare and ask if they can’t just lay down arms and work this thing out somehow. But she doesn’t do any of that. Doesn’t let herself feel sorry for any of it except for having struck him.

He doesn’t look shaken, doesn’t look like it was too far or too harsh at all. He doesn’t say anything, just narrows his eyes a little and searches her for a moment and then he seems to approve of what he finds. She’s staring at him defiantly but there must be something in her relent that encourages him, because he pulls her from the door and turns her, backing her across the room towards the desk.

He stops just short of it and looks down at her, eyes hard. She didn’t ask forgiveness and he’s not giving it to her. This is still war. And she’s no longer sorry at all.

He anchors his hands firmly in her hair at the nape of her neck and slams his mouth to hers. She bites his lip and he bites back harder, groaning. They clash for a moment before he pulls her away from him by the hair and lets go, leaving her anchorless while he tears her blazer off and rips—really, truly _rips_ —her shirt open, fabric squealing and buttons flying everywhere.

This is bad.

In some dim corner of her mind she knows this is bad. That’s her shirt, torn into pieces, hanging off her heaving body. But hell, she’s never been wetter in her fucking life and she’s already a woman damned. So she lunges forward towards Ben’s lips, but he catches her before she can get there.

He burrows his fingers into her hair at the back of her head and drags her down to her knees. 

“ _Ow,_ ” she grunts as she hits the ground with bruising force. She thinks she’s pulled something in her neck.

“Shut up.” She’s not going to be able to wear a skirt for weeks, but Leslie doesn’t care. All she cares about is getting Ben’s pants off him as quickly as she can. She fumbles with trembling fingers and god she can barely focus for how intensely her clit is throbbing. She shifts on her knees, desperate for friction, but Ben senses what she’s doing and stills her with his other hand on her jaw. “Stop that,” he commands. 

Leslie looks up at him mutinously and continues to rub her thighs together as she pulls his belt free of its buckle. He only smirks. And when his pants fall and she pulls his underwear down, she barely manages to open her mouth before Ben’s hands tighten in her hair and slam her head down onto his cock. She’s not sure if it’s the white-hot pain in her scalp where he’s gripping her or the shock of choking or both, but she splutters and her eyes prick with hot tears.

“I said stop,” he says. She blinks and whimpers as the tears run down her cheeks. It’s a pathetic little noise in the back of her throat, but that’s exactly where Ben is and it draws a deep, angry groan from deep inside him.

There it is.

The upper hand.

She moans again and he echoes her—and suddenly Leslie’s determined, at all costs, to rob him of the satisfaction of fucking her after this. She won’t give him the satisfaction of grabbing his ass, either. She’ll rob him of everything she can, determined to drag him down with her. So she balls her fists up and clenches so tight that her nails bite through the skin of her palms to keep from clutching at him, using the pain as a focus as she works his cock with her mouth. Leslie runs her tongue over him in a thousand different strokes, never quite settling on any one kind of pressure or stroke or pattern, smirking as she senses his mounting frustration. She’s just about to go in for the coup de grace—just about to give the head of his cock that tiny lick that sends him absolutely feral before she finishes him off—when he anticipates her and pulls her off of him.

Leslie screams through her teeth as he drags her to her feet. He’s still holding her by the hair.

 _Stupid, arrogant._ He’s going to fuck her after all. She could stop it, of course, but she doesn’t want to _stop_. What she wants is to have won.

Finally, Ben releases her hair. She steps back for a moment, relaxes her fists and shakes them out, glowering. A beat passes while they look at each other, sizing one another up—and with the word unsaid, they come back again, clawing at each other like they’re tearing down civilisations.

Leslie thrusts her bloody hands into Ben’s hair, pulling at it every bit as harshly as he’d torn at hers. His fingers dig into the flesh of her back as he pushes her up and onto the desk with no regard for any of the folders or papers on it. She grinds into him and lets out a low, strangled noise halfway between a whine and a grunt. A pen cup clatters to the floor, unnoticed. 

Ben pulls back when Leslie drops her hands to his collar and begins to pick at his tie, gripping her by the shoulders and looking at her hard. As if deciding he can’t fuck her while looking at her, he sighs low in the back of his throat and pulls her off the desk again, shoving her back onto it face down with her arms splayed in front of her.

Ben doesn’t bother with the fastenings of her pants. He curls his fingers into the waistband and tugs, pulling them down her legs and casting them aside along with her underwear.

He anchors her to the desk with one hand on her lower back. She whimpers as he palms her, running his other hand up and down her thighs and over the curve of her ass in a set of motions she can’t quite learn or predict. He’s taunting her right back and she lets her impatience show, grinding against him, trying to coax his hand where she needs it.

Leslie expects him to pull back, lighten his touch, tease her—but he seems to have grown suddenly tired of the game, because the next thing she knows Ben’s bracing one hand on the desk and slamming into her, clapping the other hand over her mouth as she shouts.

She tries to protest that she can be quiet, breath hot and muggy against the callus of Ben’s palm. Ben seems to understand the gist. “You’ve never been quiet in your life, Leslie.” His fingers tighten over her face as he thrusts into her, deep and hard and relentless. 

And she thinks somehow he might be dragging her down with him, not the other way around.

Leslie balls her fists again as he fucks her, her nails sharp and searing against not-quite-fresh wounds. She screams against his hand until her throat is dry and hoarse.

Ben only lets go when she’s limp and trembling.

He turns away, tidying himself up, and Leslie scrambles around the room collecting her clothes, pulling her pants on first and then her blazer.

Then she stops, looks down, remembers her tattered shirt. She pulls the two halves together and looks down at it hopelessly, noticing her bloodied nails for the first time.

“Fuck.”

“What?” Ben says, turning.

He meets her eye for a moment, guard just the slightest bit down, like he’s waiting for something. But Leslie can’t forget what happened earlier with William, knows she’s on a countdown to destruction, and she doesn’t so much as let the moment pass as she hurls stones at it and sends it running.

“You destroyed my shirt. I can’t go back out there!”

Ben hardens. “Yeah, well, you should have thought about that.”

“Seriously?”

He shrugs, straightens his tie. “Call Ann or something.” Ben takes in the state of her hands and runs his fingers through his hair, lip twitching a little. He fumbles in his pocket and pulls out the white flag he’d thrown earlier. Leslie had left it on the table in the wake of the shouting. “Here. Your hands.” He tosses it onto the desk.

“I don’t have my phone,” Leslie says.

Ben smooths his blazer, pats his pockets. “That’s not my problem.” He heads for the door, undoes the deadbolts.

“Ben, what the fuck? I said I don’t have my phone. Ben? BEN!”

The door slams. He’s gone.

***

Leslie isn’t sure how long she sits in the classroom, barefoot, bloody handkerchief balled up in her tattered hands.

It’s like being alone at her own wake before she’s even dead or buried.

She thinks about Ben. Her ruined shirt. The burning ache in her throat. Mascara running down her cheeks. Campaign about to go under. And that fucking broken clock on the ground by the door, mocking her.

Oh, god.

She’s so fucked.

***

After some time, there’s a knock on the door. 

“Leslie?” It’s Ann.

She crawls to her feet and unlocks the door, then goes back to her spot under the teacher’s desk, clutching the white flag close, before Ann comes in.

She’s carrying a bag of clothes and Leslie’s purse. Leslie doesn’t ask how Ann knew to bring them or where to find her. She really, really doesn’t want to know.

“Leslie…” Ann starts, crouching down beneath the desk. There’s a strain in her voice. “I was with Chris. And there’s footage...”

“I know,” Leslie groans. “Oh god, I’m going to be disciplined. Fuck. Fuck, fuck.”

“No, Leslie. It’s…”

“It’s what, Ann?”

“It’s… George Williams recognised you. And Ben. He recognised you and Ben.”

“Who?”

Ann presses her lips together, clearly wishing she didn’t have to elaborate. “He works in maintenance.” Leslie shakes her head, still unable to place him. Ann looks at her, pleading. Her voice breaks a little as she says, “He was at the memorial.”

The memorial. The memorial that had almost been a disaster after that maintenance guy had… Oh.

_Fuck._

Numbly, Leslie reaches for her purse, fingers fumbling until they land on her phone.

Four missed calls from William and one message. One missed call and no message from Chris. And an email with a long subject line she doesn’t read.

She doesn’t have to. The words _‘disciplinary’_ and _‘ethics’_ are all she needs to see before she vomits into the waste paper basket.

“Ben,” she gasps, wiping her mouth. “I need to warn Ben.”

Still numb, Leslie gets to her feet, grabs at the bag of clothes and pulls out a shirt, almost the same colour as the ruined one hanging off her. Ann stands and watches her change her shirt with a pitiful look that sends Leslie back a full fifteen years, back to the morning of her father’s funeral.

_Poor child. She doesn’t understand._

It’s that look that makes Leslie stop on the last button and bite her lip, searching Ann for the answer to a question she’s too afraid to ask.

Finally, Ann shakes her head.

“Ben’s gone.”


	2. Chapter 2

This is probably going to be the last time Leslie ever walks into City Hall as a government employee.

It’s the most painful walk of her life. Not because of her knees, bruised and battered, aching with every step up the oversized sandstone stairs. Not because of her hands, still stinging from the rubbing alcohol Ann had smoothed over the deep pits in her palms. Not because her throat is raw from choking and screaming.

It’s the most painful walk of her life _so far_. She’s going to have to leave City Hall today—in ten minutes or in an hour or in the dead of night by dim fluorescents after everyone else has gone. Leslie knows she is going to have to walk back down these steps.

It’s the anticipation that makes this agony.

Being stabbed is one thing. Pulling the knife out is what’s going to kill you. 

Leslie passes under the archway and comes to stand outside the heavy doors. She can feel curious eyes on her, hear the whispers. She knows what they’re saying.

Leslie Knope lost her mind at the high school.

Leslie Knope had an affair with her boss.

Leslie Knope is about to get fired.

She looks up at the great double doors and turns to Ann, who hasn’t left her side since she rescued her from the classroom.

“Is there any way I can avoid this? I can’t just… I don’t know, go to Spain? Or join a coven of witches and live in the forest?”

“I don’t think witches really live in the forest, Leslie,” Ann smiles sadly. “I think you just have to do this.”

Leslie sighs and closes her eyes. “Yeah.” Her hands hurt when she tries to ball her fists, so she hugs her elbows tenderly instead. “Oh boy. I really blew this, Ann.”

Ann rubs her back, pressing just hard enough that Leslie takes a step forward. “Come on. I’ll take you to JJ’s after. Or we can go to Sullivan’s and get super drunk, or we can watch Legally Blonde and throw chocolates at Elle when she’s moping in bed, or anything else you want. I swear to you, I will be here the whole time, no matter what. Okay?”

Leslie gives Ann a watery smile and nods.

“Do you want me to get the door?”

Leslie looks at the tender red crescents pressed into her swollen palms and back up at the carved mahogany doors, ten feet tall and maybe more. She’s looked up to the carvings all her life, from the moment her mother held her tiny hand and led her into City Hall for the first time.

How many times has she opened these doors since then? It must be thousands. Tens of thousands.

She thought she’d be opening these doors for the rest of her life.

“No.” Leslie shakes her head. “No, I’ll get it.”

Slowly, with reverence, Leslie presses her palms to the cool, solid wood—takes a breath—and pushes.

***

They’re not in a rush. Leslie looks at the murals, takes the time to greet each painted figure like an old friend, dragging her fingers gently over the oil on canvas. She murmurs apologies to Chief Wamapo, lingers on the magician in the parking lot.

They pass the shoeshine stand, empty and gathering dust, and Leslie thinks of Andy and of April, still at the Model UN conference, holding down the fort. That’s something she’ll miss, Leslie supposes absently. April coming into her own. Beautiful, capable April.

The walk to Leslie’s office is full of moments like these, fleeting and visceral reminders of her career and how it’s about to end.

Although she’s been pushing him away since she folded the dirty handkerchief and tucked it deep into her purse, Leslie finally lets her thoughts drift to Ben. She thinks of how they left things earlier on. Looking back on it as if through broken glass, she wonders if maybe he hadn’t been trying to offer her something in the midst of it all. He’d just gone with her in the first place, after all, and there’d been that moment in the aftermath when he almost seemed like he was waiting for something, before she’d yelled at him that last time. 

He’d left her there, alone and half naked, but if she’s even a little bit honest with herself ( _and the thing about watching all of your dreams die in slow motion is that it provides very fertile ground for self-reflection_ ) she can’t deny she’d pushed him to it.

And even then, he’d sent Ann to her. Ann and her purse and a shirt almost the same colour as the one he’d torn from her body.

It’s possible that Ben might have been trying.

Leslie certainly hadn’t been. She’s made such an impossible mess. 

She wonders if he’s been back yet, if he’s faced Chris. And she wonders how she can possibly face him again after getting him fired. 

This is all on her. All her fault. If she had just kept a handle on things, if she’d been an adult about all of this—or, really, about any of it… 

Ann’s fingers tighten on Leslie’s upper arm, pulling her back to the present.

She looks up at Ann, follows her gaze down the hall. And he’s there, twenty feet away, walking towards them with his padfolio tucked under his arm like this is just a normal day.

She thinks she’s going to die.

When he sees her they make eye contact for the briefest of seconds and Leslie’s desperate to know whether he’s seen Chris, whether he really was fired, whether he blames her for it—but Ben is totally, completely blank.

There’s nothing in his face that gives anything away except for the faintest hint of regret. But that could mean anything. He could regret being fired, regret their relationship, regret having ever moved to Pawnee. He could regret getting away with it knowing that she won’t.

He could regret that Chris is going to make him fire her this afternoon, for all she knows.

She bites her lip and gives him a pleading look, but he’s looking at something near Leslie yet _not_ Leslie. He jerks his head to the right and there’s a flash of something in his eyes that she doesn’t quite catch, and then he drops his gaze to the floor and walks on by.

Leslie turns to watch him as he passes them. He looks back over his shoulder and catches her eye again, then he makes a right turn down a side hallway and vanishes from view.

She wonders what he might have been looking at, but she can’t see anything or anyone remarkable. 

It’s just her and Ann in a long, empty hallway.

***

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” Leslie nods, hoping she sounds more confident than she feels. “Yes. I need to do this myself.”

“Okay.” Ann puts her hands on Leslie’s shoulders and gives her a steady, reassuring look. “You’re going to be fine. I’ll go pick us up some coffee, okay? I’ll be right outside Ron’s office when you’re done. And I’ll go with you to the management suites whenever you’re ready.”

Leslie draws her in for a hug. “Thank you, Ann.”

Ron sees her through his hall window and reaches into his bottom drawer, pulling out a bottle of whisky and two lowball glasses as Leslie steps into his office. She closes the door and as she’s about to pull the shutter down over the window, Leslie sees Ann make a right down the side hallway heading to the commissary.

She turns to the sound of glass scraping on wood as Ron wordlessly pushes a generous tumbler towards her.

Leslie looks at it and raises her eyebrows. “I think I’m about to get fired, Ron.”

“Then there’s no reason not to drink.”

Well, she supposes she can’t argue with that. The glass is heavy in her hand, but the coolness soothes the sting of it against her injured palm. She downs the whisky in a couple of long gulps and Ron pours her a second, mustache twitching in approval.

They share a strange, comfortable silence for a while as Leslie paces his office, taking it in. She’s sure this isn’t the last time she’ll come face-to-barrel with his sawn-off shotgun, but it’s probably the last time she’ll do it as his deputy. She’ll see his portrait of breakfast food again, but she might not be here when he eventually tries to set off the claymore mine and discovers the balloons. Leslie finishes the whisky and puts down the glass on the sideboard, leaning against it.

Ron folds his arms across his chest. He is either waiting for her to speak or indifferent about whether or not she does. Leslie’s still never entirely sure which it is.

“Chris found out,” she says at last. “About… About Ben. He wants to see me this afternoon.”

“I had heard.”

She thought he probably would have. “You didn’t try to call me.”

“Well, you can handle yourself.”

“Oh, god.” Inside Ron’s office, it’s safe for her to come apart a little. “I’ve fucked everything up, Ron. Big time.” Leslie looks at her hands, picking at her nails. There’s still a tiny fleck of blood under one of them. “For Ben. For you. For the department. This is a total disaster. And… and I don’t know how I can ever apologise. I’m so sorry. I’ve… I’ve disappointed everyone.”

Ron contemplates her for a moment. “It’s possible that this will be your last day here.”

Leslie swallows. “Yeah. It is.”

“But you’re a good person, Leslie. You’ll land on your feet.”

“No,” she says. “I think… I think I’m probably a bad person, Ron. A good person would never have done any of this.”

“It’s not that simple,” Ron says, leaning back in his chair. He links his fingers across his stomach. “You know what makes a good person good?” Leslie shrugs halfheartedly. “When a good person does something bad, they own up to it. They try to learn something from it and they move on.”

He meets her eye and they share a long look. She hopes that’s true. God, she hopes that might be true.

“Maybe you’ll take this opportunity to break from the government and do something useful, like building something with your hands.”

Leslie chokes back a sob and nods. “Probably not,” she says, smiling a little despite herself.

“No,” Ron agrees, mustache twitching again. “Probably not.”

After a moment, Leslie stands and wipes her eyes. “I suppose I need to tell the department.”

“I suppose you do.”

***

Ann’s waiting for her in the hall with a cup of coffee like she promised. Looking at it, Leslie is even pretty sure it has all of the sweet things she loves that Ann usually frowns on.

“It might be okay,” Ann ventures hopefully. “They might pin it all on Ben. You might just get suspended.”

It’s sweet of Ann to say it, but it doesn’t seem likely. She’s a woman, and the inferior. It seems likely that she is screwed.

***

Chris talks a lot and says nothing at all.

There are endless platitudes about service and governing and integrity—and although these are the principles Leslie has lived her entire life by, they feel bitter and empty coming out of Chris’ mouth.

There’s some lipservice to the notion of letting her off with a lighter penalty. Something about an otherwise extenuating circumstance that just can’t be taken into account on this occasion, given the level of public attention. Deep regret. Et cetera. But Leslie’s only half listening. In some dim recess of her mind, it strikes her as a little funny that the first government meeting she’s failing to pay attention to is the one in which she gets fired.

She knows that’s how this ends.

She knows in the pit of her stomach that this is all an exercise in Chris saving face. God knows why. He’s firing her. It shouldn’t matter what she thinks of him.

( _Somewhere a little less distant, it strikes her that she might be kind of drunk._ )

Leslie just wishes he’d get it over with. Put her out of her misery. Please.

***

William drops her over text while she’s waiting for Chris to get to the point.

He does get there eventually.

“But under the circumstances, with the media scrutiny, I simply have no choice but to terminate your employment,” Chris says sorrowfully. “I am devastated to lose such an exemplary employee, Leslie, but you must understand my hands are tied.”

***

When Leslie walks into her office for the last time, she finds a brand new lowball glass and a full bottle of whisky on her desk and looks up to see Ron nod at her through the window. 

It’s only early afternoon, but he’s the only person here aside from Leslie and Ann. She can only gather that Ron has sent everyone else home. She’ll have to thank him for that another time; he gives her a meaningful look and what might be a hint of a smile and he walks out the door.

In private, alone with Ann, Leslie breaks. She lets her grief and shame shudder through her and cries in Ann’s arms until no more tears will come.

***

Her belongings don’t fit into a box. They don’t even fit into two.

By the time she and Ann have packed all of Leslie’s owls and photographs, all her books and figures and certificates and keepsakes, half the whisky is gone and Ann is sober.

“You can’t carry these with your hands in that state, Leslie. They weigh thirty pounds each.”

“No, no, I can. I’ll be fine. Honestly, Ann, I’ll be fine.”

Ann shakes her head. “No.” She’s using her nurse voice. “That’s dumb. I’ll take them out to my car. You can’t drive anyway.”

She might have a point. “Okay.”

Ann rubs her upper arm. “Do you know what you want to do now? JJ’s? Movies at my house?”

Leslie looks around her office, empty except for all the binders that she’s reorganised, labelled and annotated. For whoever comes next. She looks at the three boxes full of her things—tokens of love, symbols for her dreams, mementos from times when she was proud of her life—that made this place more of a home than her actual house. She looks at Tom’s desk, through the window at Andy’s and Donna’s and April’s and Jerry’s, all still there like they always have been.

And she realises, of course, that life here is going to go on without her. City Hall isn’t going to stop because Leslie Knope is gone. And once she leaves it’s going to be so… final. None of this will ever be hers again. And when she visits her friends here, she’ll just be a visitor, a ghost passing through someone else’s home long after the world has forgotten her.

How can she ever be ready for that?

Leslie presses her lips together, eyes watering again. “I… I want to say one last goodbye to City Hall.”

Ann squeezes her arm. “Do you want me to come with you?”

“No,” Leslie chokes. “No, I think I want to do this alone.”

So Ann takes Leslie’s things home, and she promises to come and pick her up the moment Leslie calls.

***

Leslie moves through City Hall as if she’s in a dream, taking in all the life and spirit and texture that makes this building what it is. Remembers all the places inside that have made her who she is, cherises them, and says goodbye.

She buys a commissary hamburger and eats it in the courtyard, imagining conversations about office dating and chutney and allowing herself to wonder where Ben is and what his afternoon has been like.

She orders an obscenely large, sweet coffee from each of the two coffee vendors and drinks them both as she roams the halls, doing her best not to notice all the long, pitying looks and pretending not to hear the words _Knope_ and _Wyatt_ floating in the air.

She perches on the bench at the shoeshine stand, reflecting that she never did trust Andy with even a single pair of her shoes.

She visits the dark, empty city council chamber. Loses herself in the wonder of the corinthian leather and the mahogany, the smell of history and the promise of hope. And she sits in Councilman Pillner’s chair for a long, long time.

The only place she avoids is the fourth floor. It would be tempting fate, almost, to try to say goodbye to it now. No one wants to have to visit the fourth floor.

Not even Leslie.

***

As she tours the murals, paying her respects to the people in them and saying her last farewells, Leslie stops beneath the wildflowers and sits for a time.

This one is going to be the hardest.

Leslie leans into the bench and closes her eyes, remembering the first time she’d found this mural.

She’d been five years old, roaming the empty halls while she waited for one of her mother’s meetings to finish when she’d gotten lost and happened upon it by accident. And every time she’d come to City Hall after that, she’d begged to see her mural.

She did her homework under it, cried over boys under it.

It’s the last place Leslie had eaten dinner with her dad before he’d died.

The wildflowers were her constant refuge in her first lonely years at the parks department before she really had friends, and again after Lindsay had left when she’d been too heartbroken to eat within eyeshot of the office they’d shared.

She had her first date with Ben here ( _and she knows better than to think of it this way, but she just can’t help herself and, really, it couldn’t matter less any more_ ) and this is where she came to console herself after they broke up.

Leslie has no idea what life is going to look like without the mural in it or how she’s supposed to say goodbye. She’s at an absolute, grief-stricken loss. 

She opens her eyes and stares down at her wounded hands, too numb now even to cry, and wonders again about Ben. Wonders if she should text him, or something, or if that would be too forward or too unwelcome. She lets herself drift a little, gives herself over to the whims of her thoughts and thinks about what they’d had. She thinks it might really have been something. She thinks what they might have been if it wasn’t for her campaign, if it wasn’t for all of the awful things she’d done.

Well, none of that matters now.

Her father is gone, and so is her job, and so is her campaign, and so is Ben. The mural’s still here, but Leslie won’t be. Not once she leaves this spot.

Leslie will be gone, too, and none of it matters. None of it matters at all.

She blinks dully, letting the world slide out of focus. She has to leave, Leslie realises. She has to summon the strength to leave, or eventually the building is going to close and she is going to be escorted from it like a trespasser. Better to get a head start, do this on her own terms. This, she can choose for herself. She presses her palms to her eyes, exhaling deliberately. She can do this. She can stand up and walk away.

Footsteps fall on the floor as Leslie gathers herself and she looks up sharply, praying time hasn’t gotten away from her.

But it isn’t security.

Ben is standing there. He’s holding a cardboard box.

Oh. 

_Fuck._

She looks up into his gaze and they hold each other’s eyes for a moment, studying one another with shared concern. 

“Hi, honey,” Ben says dryly. “How was your day?” An ironic smile dances across his lips as he sits on the bench next to her and puts his box down.

Leslie laughs despite herself. It’s that or cry. “Oh, I’ve had better.” She really thought he’d be angrier than this. “I’m sorry I got you fired,” she offers, a little pathetically, after an awkward beat.

Ben rests his knuckles on his knees and looks up at the ceiling. “No, I kind of asked to be.”

“What?”

“I thought it might make a difference,” Ben says. He rubs his face, looking defeated. “I guess not, though.” He pauses, looks over at her, frowns. “Wait, I thought you got fired. Did you not get fired?”

“No, I definitely did.”

“Oh. Uh, Chris said it wouldn’t change anything—but I thought maybe… You don’t have any stuff with you. I thought maybe he changed his mind.”

“Ann took it,” Leslie says, turning her palms up by way of explanation, exposing the gouges. “I am definitely one hundred percent fired.” Ben’s eyes widen at the sight of her hands.

“Good lord, Leslie.” He reaches out and takes one of her hands gently, inspecting it. “That’s… that’s really bad.”

She shrugs. “It’s fine.” 

“I’m sorry—”

“No, no,” Leslie says, cutting him off. It’s probably okay to cut him off to apologise. She turns towards him, leaning in a little. “I’m sorry. About everything. Ben, I’m so sorry.”

He shrugs. “It’s fine.”

Leslie bites her lip, about to protest.

“In the scheme of things, really. It’s fine.”

“In the scheme of things,” she echoes.

“I mean, this is kind of worst-case scenario, right?”

“Yeah,” she sighs. “I can’t see how this could be worse. Unless they’d, you know, walked in on...” She trails off, waving a hand vaguely and flushing a little.

“Yeah.”

He releases her hand and leans back, closing his eyes. Leslie chews her lip, too exhausted to think about what any of this means. They sit in heavy silence, neither particularly anxious to move or to say anything else. 

“It’s almost six,” Ben says after a while, glancing at his wrist.

“Security,” Leslie says. She gets to her feet slowly, still a little fuzzy from the whisky. “We need to leave.”

“Yeah,” Ben says, picking up his box. “Yeah, yeah.”

Leslie turns back to the wildflower mural and takes a deep breath, taking it all in one last time. She breathes in the flowers, every last one. Clutches at every shade of purple, every golden yellow, committing it all to memory.

She can come back, but it will never be hers again. She has to remember every little detail. Every little thing about it.

And oh, god, she’s still not ready.

But it’s time to go.

***

The sun is low in the sky when Leslie walks out of City Hall for the last time, Ben close behind her.

The doors swing closed with a final _thud_. She walks down the great stone steps and into the parking lot. The bruises on her knees have come into bloom, her hands are still in tatters, her throat is more raw now than it was before from the screaming and the crying and the whisky. But it all seems so normal—so everyday—that for the first time, it occurs to Leslie that she might actually survive this.

There might be a life for her out there, somewhere. She looks at the setting sun, pink and gorgeous, and she sees possibility. 

And Leslie knows she’s going to wake up tomorrow and feel totally, wholly miserable. She knows she’s going to grieve for all of it. Her job, her life’s work, her dreams of political office. Life as she’s known it until this moment. She knows there’s a lot of pain ahead. But here, now, looking at the Sweetums sunburst in the sky ahead, she allows herself a moment of reckless, stupid hope. 

Maybe her ride isn’t over.

She doesn’t know where she’s going or what she’s going to do next, but she’s pretty sure she’s not done yet. 

“Oh boy,” she murmurs to herself, taken by the wonder of it. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Ben come to stand beside her, still holding the box. She turns to him, squinting in the sunlight. “What do we do now?”

“No idea,” he says, looking up at the sky. They stand together quietly, side by side, like rocks settling in a stream while normal life babbles on all around them. City Hall employees with badges and security clearances and tomorrows trickle out of the building, head to their cars and pull out of the parking lot going wherever people with jobs and families go, and it’s all so routine and so absurdly cinematic in the candy coloured haze that none of this quite seems real.

After a moment, Ben shakes his head and chuckles. 

“Hm?” Leslie tilts her head, questioning.

“Well,” he says, looking down at her, silhouetted in the purple-golden sunset. “Since we got fired and everything…” There’s an almost roguish smile on his lips. “Do you wanna get a beer?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Zi and Paige, the most beautiful beta fish in the world. I had no idea this was going to happen when I sat down to write this.


End file.
